US International Trade Commission Issues Cellphone Ban: Effective Immediately

[DeSwiss]

Patent Bending
Ding-a-ling! The ITC blows up the cell-phone market.

Wall Street OpinionJournal
Saturday, June 9, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

Paging U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab: Please call us on your cell phone. And better do it fast because cell phones may soon be harder to come by thanks to one of the dumber rulings ever by the U.S. International Trade Commission.

By a 4-2 vote on Thursday, the ITC decided to ban the import of any new cell phone model produced with certain microchips made by Qualcomm. ITC Chairman David Pearson dissented on grounds that the ban was antithetical to the public good, which is certainly true. But the import ban is effective immediately, and this means that President Bush, through Ms. Schwab, has just 60 days to set the ruling aside before it becomes permanent. There's an overwhelming case for doing so.

The ITC's power to ban foreign-made, patent-infringing products goes back to the infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930--which ought to be a hint that this is a bad idea. The fear was that American intellectual property would be stolen by foreign firms, which would use U.S. patents to produce goods overseas without paying royalties and then ship those products to the U.S. The law was never intended to substitute for domestic patent-infringement suits in federal courts between two American companies, which is the story here.

The patent holder in this instance is California-based Broadcom, which has sued Qualcomm for infringement. Broadcom owns several patents relevant to the production of certain cell phones sold by Sprint, Verizon, Alltel, as well as T-Mobile and AT&T. In other words, pretty much every large cell phone operator in the country sells at least some phones that contain the allegedly infringing chips.

The ITC tried to soften the blow of its ruling by grandfathering existing models and applying the ban only to future models. This was presumably a nod to the extraordinary breadth of the ban: Nobody, including Broadcom, actually makes competing chips in the U.S., so an import ban is tantamount to a total ban. However, anyone who's shopped recently for a cell phone knows that the future arrives fast in that industry, with new models coming all the time.

more: http://opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110010192

*** - On the bright side, with cellphones banned, the NSA won't be able to listen in on our phone calls....

[MatrixEscape]

1. To hell with cellphones then ...

We didn't have them or need them when I was younger, and they may possibly be killing off the honey bees we need in order to pollenate the various foods we eat ... as the current, hypothetical speculation goes.

Being instantly connected to everyone you know is not the most important factor of life even though telepathy might be nice capacity to have. other than the obvious, emergency phone call that cellphones provide, the rest is yet another form of unnecessary distraction and a form of white noise and potential, existential disassociation and rudeness that many would not miss.

I mean, yeah, we may just get our brains plugged into the matrix at some point based on the potentials and implications of cellphone technology, but have you looked at that extra bill for airtime both incoming and outgoing? And how many kids do you have to foot that new bill for based on this miraculous and must-have technology? Is it really worth it? Really?

Do we want to continue to yield our purpose. energy, and precious time to a never-ending series of artificially created wants and needs? How many of them will we continue to support in a world of increasing scarcity and inequity before we can even begin to collectively embrace and uphold what is demonstrably essential to real happiness and a more pervasive and sustainable form of survival rather than effluvia and remarkably short-term strategy compared to long-term survival and a substantial and stable continuation of our species. This gets down to organic versus conceptual and commodity versus tangible and practical substance.

[DeSwiss]

3. Well...

"Being instantly connected to everyone you know is not the most important factor of life even though telepathy might be nice capacity to have."

I don't know... can you imagine listening in on *'s telepathetic ramblings? I'd imagine it'd be like getting caught in the votex of a massive black hole. Where no thought of any kind can ever reenter this universe.

But I get your point...

[glowing]

2. Perhaps this might just create some technology jobs in the US.

I know just a few people who are out of work.

[DeSwiss]

4. From the article...

"But the import ban is effective immediately, and this means that President Bush, through Ms. Schwab, has just 60 days to set the ruling aside before it becomes permanent."

So with the big players involved, you think * is going to wait 60 days to set this aside???

:shrug:

[glowing]

5. No,

I'm sure the lobbyists are waiting at the door.

[MiniMe]

6. This has K Street written all over it

Who is the one carrier not named? Verizon. Can you hear me now?

[On the Road]

7. It's Not Banning Cellphones

It's banning certain models judged to infringe on patents. I doubt anyone will even be able to tell unless they happen to be shopping for that particular model of Qualcomm phone.